Melting this gold. Super frustrated.

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Worms4u

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2016
Messages
14
I am roughly 95% certain the gold I have is 24 karat. I've refined it twice, boiled the dust in HCL, and washed it in boiling water several times.

If I had to guess it's about 1oz of gold, its about the size of a quarter, but thicker. It's collected as a sort of solid but you can break it apart.

I see people in videos melting gold in a melt dish with borax and propane with no problems. Tried that, doesn't work.

I see people using MAPP gas, so I go out and get a MAPP gas torch.. doesn't work.

I see people making little furnaces that their melt dish sits in and using propane. I made one using lazersteve's directions and the pictures from the thread on the forum. Doesn't work.

I do the same with the MAPP gas torch and the furnace. IT DOESN'T F'ing WORK.

I bust the gold in half try that - gets Red/white hot. Doesn't melt.

Do I have to go get an arc welder or OXY/Acetyline to melt this crap? I've used a bottle of MAPP gas already trying to melt this crap, I kept it in the furnace for nearly 50 minutes. Nope.

So. What am I doing wrong.
Worms
Sorry for the cussing. I want to cuss a who lot more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you for the reply. However it's the least helpful reply I have ever received, ranking lower than 'RTFM'.

Why is it 'fine' for you, and not for me. I went through the trouble explaining exactly what I've done (so someone doesn't reply with 'RTFM') and you've responded with something less useful.

What do you mean by 'Oxy/Propane' - Are you just talking about a standard propane torch? Or are you somehow injecting extra oxygen into the burning gas so it somehow burns hotter? If so, how do I do that? Wouldn't it just blow the blue flame out?

How much gold are you melting at once for it to 'work fine'?

I still fail to understand all of the videos I have seen where someone starts the melt with a melt dish, pauses the video, comes back and says 'I melted the gold for 11 minutes' and it's molten. I haven't even got any bloody thing partially molten.

Further, I read that MAPP burns at 5000F degrees, ok. So if the gold has a melting temp of 2000, why doesn't it melt right away? Am I to believe that 3000 degrees is lost in the atmosphere? Ok, so I make a furnace, STILL 3000 degrees is being lost?

Don't tell me what works for you. Tell me WHY it works for you, and or point to my explanation and tell me 'well you're doing this wrong'.

Thanks,
Worms
P.S. This is not a personal attack, I just want something useful to work with.
 
Oxy/propane is a torch set-up you get get at Home Depot for about $100.00, maybe less. Works fine for small amounts. I use oxy/acetylene and it works wonderfully. I don't think propane alone will melt gold. Mapp works but takes forever. If you have a second torch aimed at the crucible it helps. At the end of the day oxy/acetylene is probably your best bet.
 
Worms4u said:
Thank you for the reply. However it's the least helpful reply I have ever received, ranking lower than 'RTFM'.

Why is it 'fine' for you, and not for me. I went through the trouble explaining exactly what I've done (so someone doesn't reply with 'RTFM') and you've responded with something less useful.

What do you mean by 'Oxy/Propane' - Are you just talking about a standard propane torch? Or are you somehow injecting extra oxygen into the burning gas so it somehow burns hotter? If so, how do I do that? Wouldn't it just blow the blue flame out?

How much gold are you melting at once for it to 'work fine'?

I still fail to understand all of the videos I have seen where someone starts the melt with a melt dish, pauses the video, comes back and says 'I melted the gold for 11 minutes' and it's molten. I haven't even got any bloody thing partially molten.

Further, I read that MAPP burns at 5000F degrees, ok. So if the gold has a melting temp of 2000, why doesn't it melt right away? Am I to believe that 3000 degrees is lost in the atmosphere? Ok, so I make a furnace, STILL 3000 degrees is being lost?

Don't tell me what works for you. Tell me WHY it works for you, and or point to my explanation and tell me 'well you're doing this wrong'.

Thanks,
Worms
P.S. This is not a personal attack, I just want something useful to work with.
Click to expand...

Attitudes like this don't last long around here.
 
A couple of things. Calling me names doesn't somehow make my points or questions less valid. Denim, thank you for your reply - I had no idea that Oxy/Propane was a thing, I had only ever heard of Oxy/Acetylene.

I am the type of person that does a massive amount of research on a topic. I go and learn, then refine my technique. So far I've been able to successfully do all forms of gold collection from CuCl2 to sulfuric cells, to AR refining after making my own Nitric acid.

The problem is none of you know that. So when I come here to ask a question I have already done 20 hours of research, done the work and it still doesn't work. Then the response I get from someone is 'RTFM'. Well I did that.

So to head that off at the pass, I explain my whole process and what I've done to try to make it work. Sure if I showed up and was like 'Hey distill the whole forum down and spoon feed it to me' I would be an 'Entitled Muppet' but I am not.

Telling someone what works for them without explaining why or how is like saying to someone who asks 'I am having trouble with dribbling this soccer ball, would someone help' and the reply you get is 'I am good at soccer'.

That's not very useful.

Anyway thanks for the help Denim, it's appreciated. I'll have to save up for a torch that will work, until then.. off to process some more boards.

Worms
 
Worms4u said:
off to process some more boards.
Click to expand...
If you want to keep complaining about the answers you're getting, your time here will be short. I hope while you're off processing some more boards you'll find a little peace within, and rejoin us with a better attitude.

And I don't care how frustrated you are, continued cussing in your posts will guarantee you'll be banned. Read the rules. Follow them.

Dave
 
I'm a bit confused because original poster is claiming he is one to do a "massive amount of research" yet the questions he has asked are already answered numerous times by experts on this forum. I don't often say much, but my suggestion would be for him to return to the research because the answer is readily available in other posts.
 
Both the name calling and profanity are out of line and I know someone who would have dropped the ban hammer on both. Stop trying to skirt the edges people, it only makes you look bad.
 
okay.... any of you guys that have ever tried to melt with only MAPP should be able to recognize this guys frustration. Where some of you get off insulting him is beyond me and completely asinine. How and why does anachronism continues to get away with these blatant insults? This kind of behavior is self-destructive to this forum!


In regards to the original post:
MAPP gas alone burns at 3650F.... WITH oxygen, it will burn at about 5300F. While Scrapman's reply was limited, he is correct... I use an oxygen/propane mixture and melted 8+ ounces with no problem within 5 minutes. While some of us may take it for granted as common knowledge, oxy/propane (or oxy/acetylene) torches actually combine pure oxygen with the hydrocarbon fuel through two separate fuel lines. The resulting flame is much hotter than the hydrocarbon fuel alone. Some torches combine air through a mixing chamber, but this is not the same as using pure oxygen.

In addition, one thing that I didn't see in your explanation and could be VERY important was that there was no mention of insulating your crucible. It might not seem important since its 'under the flame', but it WILL make the difference between being able to melt and ounce with MAPP gas or standing over a blazing hot crucible for 45 minutes and cussing up a storm (been there, done that, went out and bought an oxy/propane torch the next day). If you consider that gold is an extremely good conductor of heat, then it should make sense why insulating the crucible is even more important.

Hopefully this is helpful in pointing you where you need to go.

Oh, and do be careful with the profanity regardless of how frustrated you are. We have all been there, but the rules are the rules.
 
Yep, as above, I was going to ask for a picture of the melting setup, but it is likely an insulation problem.

MAPP gas with air definitely melts Gold, but you need to insulate the system as much as possible,otherwise it will take a long time. Also, realistically, and ounce is getting to the limit of MAPP + air.
 
mls26cwru said:
okay.... any of you guys that have ever tried to melt with only MAPP should be able to recognize this guys frustration. Where some of you get off insulting him is beyond me and completely asinine. How and why does anachronism continues to get away with these blatant insults? This kind of behavior is self-destructive to this forum!
Click to expand...

Did you actually read the posts where he was being rude to someone who had replied or were you reading something else? Coming on here and within the first two posts slagging folk off and swearing isn't something that should be accepted. It's not the first time it's happened recently however if you look at the post I made in response to another one like this you'll see that it was completely different so your generalisation is inaccurate.

Look if you want me gone guys then just say the word because given the amount of grief that's levelled at me every time I stand up and say what other people think but are too PC to say it's rapidly becoming not worth posting any way. I've never been able to stand by and keep silent when someone does wrong to someone. Frankly calling someone a muppet is hardly harsh words that warrant tears. If it is then we're all doomed.
 
anachronism said:
Look if you want me gone guys then just say the word because given the amount of grief that's levelled at me every time I stand up and say what other people think but are too PC to say it's rapidly becoming not worth posting any way. I've never been able to stand by and keep silent when someone does wrong to someone. Frankly calling someone a muppet is hardly harsh words that warrant tears. If it is then we're all doomed.
Click to expand...
You say you feel that people are "too PC". I wrote about this a couple of years ago, and I'll repeat it here again:

"You mention the concept of political correctness. I had a lady who worked for me when I was in the medical billing business. One day, someone said something about a policy being "retarded". She asked the person if they understood what that word meant, and explained that it meant something was slow. Her son had Down Syndrome, and over the years many had referred to him as being retarded. I made an effort to never misuse the word. Is that being PC, or being courteous?

When my oldest grandson was younger, he started pointing out any time I used the word stupid, because his mother didn't want him using it. I adjusted. My youngest grandson now points out every time someone says "ain't". His mother wants him to use other words. Again, I'm trying to adjust. These aren't political correctness. I'm just trying to respect the wishes of my grandsons' mothers."

You say "calling someone a muppet is hardly harsh words that warrant tears". The question is why you feel a need to call any one names of any kind? Maybe you wouldn't get so much grief from others if you didn't resort to such behavior.

Dave
 
scrapman1077 said:
Oxy/propane works fine.
Click to expand...

This is not the correct way to answer a question on this forum. We strive to share information with each other, and do so with detailed answers. Otherwise, we're just another crappy forum.

I know Scrapman was not trying to come across as a smart ass, but I can see the OP's viewing it that way.I think had scrapman just provided a little more info to his post, there would have been no problem.

We need to all get along here. Safety demands it.
 
Hey Worms,

I set my melting dish inside a piece of insulation and hit it with MAP gas. It takes a little while but you will get the hang of it. Not trying to throw stones here, but I only know that because I searched melting gold with the search function.

Mike
 
Drama aside.

What is the source of the gold? How did you refine it? You are 95% sure...but not 100%. If you have silver chloride contamination, or contamination with any high melting point platinum group metals, it can make it really difficult to get a clean melt due to the refractory nature. You will get fusion, without liquid metal...so basically you end up with a hard cookie of sorts that's all baked together, but never reached liquidus.

I would second the comment about insulating the crucible somehow. Gold can be melted just fine with ONLY propane, when insulated. Without the insulation, it would be frustrating.
 

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